


Halamshiral

by caseyvalhalla



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon Age Spoilers, M/M, Size Difference, references to slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 18:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caseyvalhalla/pseuds/caseyvalhalla
Summary: At sixteen, Keith meets a qunari named Shiro in Kirkwall in the midst of a botched attempt to spy on the Arishok and regrets not taking the time to get to know him better.  Years later, working as a scout for the Inquisition and ferrying information back to the Dalish elders, Keith meets Shiro again, under much less desirable circumstances.  Even so, they might still find a home in each other, if the world would only stop working to tear them apart.





	Halamshiral

**Author's Note:**

> This is, of course, entirely Bioware's fault.
> 
> Unbeta'd at the moment but we'll worry about that once I've finished it. Any sudden tense changes and errors in DA lore are my own.
> 
> _Halamshiral = "the end of the journey"_

 

Keith is sixteen when Keeper Kolivan sends him out on his first mission.  He's smaller than the other scouts, wiry and smoldering with the vallaslin fresh on his face, flamelike violet curls that lick across his chin and cheekbones.  The team keeps him in the center of the group as they creep through Darktown and up into the city proper, much to his chagrin, and he takes the first opportunity he has to show off, to sneak up on a trio of guards and knock them all out with a puff of dust and a few well-placed kicks.

It's a miscalculation that separates him from his team, and leaves Keith stranded on the unfamiliar streets of Kirkwall, creeping through the shadows and trying to follow the scent of the sea underneath the stench of garbage and urine and bodies packed together behind stone walls.  It makes his head spin, the noise and the dirt and smoke, makes him ache for the forest, crisp cool air and quiet. At some point he stops hoping he can salvage the job he's supposed to be doing and starts hoping the team doesn't abandon him here, where he might be lost forever.

He stumbles upon the docks by accident, and he's in entirely the wrong place; they intended to approach from above, to wait and watch and look for opportunities to steal information.  Keith is at ground level, frozen in place and staring through an iron grate at the back of a creature as tall and broad and gray as the city walls. He barely stifles a gasp, drops into a crouch and backs away, praying his foot doesn't disturb a stray pebble.  Praying that the pounding of his heart in his throat doesn't give him away.

Keith has never been certain whether the gods listen, since the tales say they were locked away, but he thinks that something must have heard him that day, as his foot slips with a clatter and the mountain of a beast in front of him turns toward the noise, raising a wickedly curved axe in a fist that could snap Keith in half on its own.

Then a hand claps around Keith's mouth and a voice whispers, low and urgent in his ear, "I won't hurt you.  Be quiet."

Keith is already clutching the grips of his blades, and he slowly releases them, head jerking in a nod, and the hand over his face moves to grab his shoulder instead, pulling him back against a wall.  He catches sight of dark hair, skin the color of the sky on an overcast day, and the barest glimpse of kind, concerned eyes, before he's blocked in to his spot on the wall with a broad back inches from his nose.  Keith thinks, perhaps a bit feverishly, that this qunari seems rather small. Maybe it's just in comparison to the mountain he just encountered, which was now lumbering around the iron grate, sweeping the area for signs of the noise Keith had made.  This one is just large enough that Keith is completely, perfectly hidden behind him, and when the axe-wielding mountain glances over and barks something at Keith's savior, he's none the wiser.

The qunari in front of him says something back in the same language, and it sounds smooth as silk on his tongue.  From Keith's vantage, he can only see muscled arms and chiseled shoulders, a fist curled around a halberd, a bit of black hair brushing his broad shoulders and curving ivory horns.  The mountain has brutal, ox-like horns but these are more elegant, sweeping back from the forehead and curled up at the tips. They remind Keith of the dragon carvings on Thace's aravel.

The mountain grunts and returns to its post, and the moment it's out of sight Keith's savior turns to face him, still uncomfortably close.  "You should be more careful. I've been watching you for a while."

The qunari's front is just as rigidly muscular as his back, and small as he seems by comparison, Keith still has to tilt his head back to follow the red and white lines of warpaint and see his face.  It's handsome—strong jaw, dark eyes, handsome the way that human men are handsome, and Keith wonders idly if he's mixed, like Keith, although Keith had taken almost completely after his mother despite that.  He swallows back his thoughts and the lingering fear in his throat, stuttering over an, "Oh," shame settling over him like a heavy cloak.

Some of it must show, in the droop of his shoulders or the tremor in his voice, because the qunari's expression softens and the hand that had saved him pats him on the shoulder.  "I see you can take care of yourself. It's late, though, and best for you to get back to the alienage. The streets are not safe now."

The language sounds a little stilted, like it's an unfamiliar shape in the qunari's mouth, and Keith feels something in his back straighten immediately, defensive.  "I'm not from the alienage."

The qunari considers his scowl, eyes flickering over him with an assessing glint, and Keith tries to make himself taller, tries to meet the stare evenly.  Dark eyes blink, and the qunari tilts his head with a low vocalization of understanding. "The marks. I see now." The hand lifts from Keith's shoulder and almost touches his face, close enough Keith can feel the warmth radiating from his fingers against the lines of the vallaslin still healing on his cheeks.  The qunari stops himself with a start, eyes darting away for a moment, hand dropping to his side and clenching, relaxing. "Sorry. I have never... met one of the wild elves before."

Keith decides not to correct him, and something squirming in his gut wants that hand to return and trace the lines on his face.  He clamps it down, too flush against the wall to even take a step back. "I've never met a qunari before, either, so I guess we're even."  Keith swallows again, but the fear is mostly gone now, the danger out of sight, and he needs to either find his team or get out of the city and back to camp.  "Thanks for... um." He gestures vaguely towards the grate where he'd nearly been caught, shivering a little just at the memory of that axe. "I'm Keith."

The qunari takes half a step back, just enough to raise his arm over his chest.  "Shiro." His eyes continue roaming over Keith, and he's not sure whether to be flattered or alarmed by the attention.  "You are a long way from the forest." Shiro's mouth twitches up in something approaching a smile, something that makes him even more handsome, and Keith swears he can see a glint like a twinkle in his eye.  "Spying?"

Keith's knee-jerk response is to deny it, but he has a nagging feeling that doing so is as good as confirmation, and Shiro doesn't seem angry or threatened by the notion.  So he shrugs instead. "The hahren are concerned about the Arishok being here. The humans are unhappy, and when humans are unhappy about one group of non-humans, all non-humans usually suffer.  Treaties are broken. Exalted Marches happen." Shiro makes a face. "Neither of our people want that. Again."

"Come with me," Shiro says abruptly, and he turns on his heel and walks off away from the docks.  "You're lost. I'll show you the way out."

"I'm not lost."

"I told you, I was watching."  Shiro's voice sounds amused despite the halting cadence, and when Keith catches up and trots alongside his much faster gait, a sideways glance confirms that light smile is still playing across his face.  "The Arishok will leave. An important item was taken, but he is confident it will be returned soon."

"Are you sure?"

"No."  Shiro's voice is strained, and he studies an intersection with quirking eyebrows before turning a corner.  "Whatever happens, we have no interest in your people." He glances down at Keith. "I'm sorry, my words are not accurate.  We won't trouble your people. We—I am." He clears his throat abruptly. "You are... interesting."

Something flares in Keith's chest and it's harder to stamp down this time; he's hyper-aware of the warmth radiating from Shiro's arm against his side, how close he gets when they sidestep into the shadows to avoid a city guard patrol.  Keith has more important concerns, certainly, but he can be forgiven for his youth, and for thinking that Shiro was also very... interesting.

"You're not like the others," he comments once they're clear, and Shiro pauses, head tilted, before continuing on.

"I am."  His voice is low and thoughtful, and he nudges Keith's back to direct him down a side alley.  "I simply saw no reason to let you get hurt. Some other qunari are less discerning. So are some elves."

"But you know I'm a spy."

"You attempted to spy.  You have not learned anything dangerous.  And you would not have learned more than what I've told you, if you had been successful.  So, go home and tell your... hahren. Is that the word?"

It was the word, and it sounds like honey in Shiro's mouth.  Keith wants to know how other elven speech would sound, with Shiro murmuring it.  Perhaps into his ear. "Yes. Our elders."

They turn onto a main road and remain silent for a few minutes, until the walls are closer again and it feels safe enough to whisper.  "Do you work for the Arishok?"

"I'm of his guard, but... less.  Low rank, I think that is the term.  Still a high honor. It is my first post."  Shiro holds himself a bit straighter, and Keith can sense the pride in his voice, through the halting language.  "It is rare. The others are veterans, but my Tamassran insisted. It was... I don't know the word. I proved my worth."

Shiro glances down, possibly to see Keith's response to that, maybe hoping Keith is impressed; at least, that's what Keith hopes it means.  And Keith is impressed, a soft smile tugging at his mouth, and when Shiro notices it he smiles back, wide and bright this time, and it might be the most beautiful thing Keith has ever seen.

"So, you spy for your elders.  My people have something like that, also."

"Ben haserath."

"You know."  Shiro seems pleased, and when he touches Keith's back to indicate they need to turn again his hand lingers, long enough to leave warmth tingling in its wake.  "They are... I don't know the word, again. To be feared. In a way that is respectful."

"That's what I hear."  Keith pauses outside a ring of torchlight, and starts to recognize his surroundings.  Darktown is nearby, and he remembers the route his team used to sneak in. He can get out the same way.  "I don't think I'm like them, though."

"No?" Shiro turns towards him, frowning in a way that was almost as beautiful as his smile.  Sort of cute, if any expression on a horned giant could be considered cute. "I see how you move.  How you carry yourself. I think I would fear you, if you were my enemy."

Something warm bursts inside Keith's chest, almost like a heavy swig of bad alcohol that burns in his stomach rushes directly to his head.  It's intoxicating, and the next time they come to a corner Keith knows they need to round he hesitates anyway just so Shiro will touch his back, almost shivering at the realization of how large that hand is, the way it burns into his nerves.

Keith is young.  Technically too young to have the vallaslin but his instructors and the hahren were impressed by him, and his parents pushed, and Kolivan agreed.  He's old enough to be of age in his clan but not old enough to know what to do with the way his heart stutters in his chest when he realizes he has to go back to his camp, that the clan will probably leave the area if the hahren are satisfied with the information he got, that whenever the Arishok finally leaves Kirkwall, Shiro will go with him, and Keith will probably never see him again.

He's too young to know how to ask for one night, how to dally in dark corners or arrange moonlit trysts.  He could have asked, probably, as he will come to realize later. If Shiro wanted to linger somewhere quiet, meet him another night in a nearby grove, and Shiro would most definitely have said yes.

But he doesn't, and instead he hovers near the broken grate in one of the drains, among the damp and stink, and tries to think of something meaningful to say.  "Well. Uh, thank you."

Shiro makes another gesture across his chest.  "It was... a pleasure to meet you, Keith." The way his voice slides over the word pleasure does things to Keith's stomach.  "Please be careful."

Keith shrinks a bit under the gentle admonishment and steps back, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  "I will. Um." He waves, a little awkwardly, shoulder bumping against the grate. "Bye."

He's pretty sure Shiro's eyes get that twinkle again, the corner of his mouth curling up as he mimics Keith's wave.  "Bye."

Keith almost trips and rights himself with a stuttered laugh and ducks into the opening before he can embarrass himself any further.  By the time he arrives back at camp he's thought of at least fifty different, much better things he could have said to Shiro, and while Kolivan lectures him about grandstanding and getting separated from his team he thinks of about twelve more.  He defends himself with the useful information he was still able to gather, but it ends up being almost useless because they get word the next morning that someone named Hawke had driven the qunari out of Kirkwall. His clan breaks camp almost immediately.

In the months and years that follow, Keith's memory lingers over Shiro in the quiet darkness at night, imagining how that honey sweet voice might feel against his neck, those huge, pale hands against his bare skin.  He grows, and he learns, but there's no one else who makes his blood run quite as fast and hot. And no one else who gets away without so much as a taste.

 

 

 

Keith is twenty-one when Kolivan chooses him to infiltrate the Inquisition.  He'd buried his father the year before, after the fires that raged through the Freemarches in the dry summer.  He'd saved all the children in the camp, succumbed to the smoke he inhaled doing so a week later. The clan honored him as a warrior with a Dalish funeral, buried in the forest with an oak staff and a cedar branch, a tree planted as a marker, to continue the cycle.

He’s uncertain about leaving his mother, but she spends a month by the campfires with the craftsfolk, stitching him ironbark armor.  He's grown so much, she said. He needs new leathers, new dagger grips, new soles on his boots. She knows how deeply he wants to go, how much he’s grown since that botched job in Kirkwall, how prepared he is to go out into the wider world.  She practically pushes him out of the camp, and he feels her hands on his back long after he's boarded the ship across the Waking Sea.

He's recruited as a scout easily enough, and quickly gains an appreciable reputation for staying out of everyone's way.  They may not realize he's spying or they may not care; he's not here to meddle, just to watch and listen. The hahren want to know what the Inquisition does, where they go, what they find in the back country of the Dales, for generations lying empty after the elves were driven out.  The officers put him on rotation with the rest of the scouts, and he finds himself scouring deserts and climbing mountains in places he'd never dreamed of going. He learns how to waterproof a tent on the storm-battered coast of Ferelden, learns at least five new colors watching desert sunsets, and the deep green of the trees in the Emerald Graves nearly brings him to tears.  He spends some of his stipend on a sketchbook and graphite sticks, and when he's not penning letters home to his mother (and other coded letters that are palmed off to contacts he passes in the crowds during shift changes in Skyhold) he's perched on a rock or a log sketching a landscape, a sculpture, a crumbling ruin, copying a faded inscription. There's no sight that doesn't seem wondrous, and his teammates tease him for being so stoic and serious about his documentation.

Off-duty rotations in Skyhold are chilly and noisy, but he gets used to the thrum of people and the smell of horses, finds a favorite spot on the battlements to tune it all out and make repeated attempts to capture the Frostback mountains with charcoal and parchment.  He avoids the keep, which is always full of gossiping Orlesian nobles and fraught with serious business, but he occasionally slips in as far as the fireplace near the entrance. The dwarf storyteller is usually there, ensconced in a high-backed chair writing in a leatherbound book.  On good evenings he'll wave Keith into a spot on the rug, along with whoever else wanders in, set his book aside and start telling some story that seems wildly unlikely but apparently really happened. On particularly opportune evenings, Keith will stay unnoticed late into the night and eventually Mahanon Lavellan, the Inquisitor himself, will drop exhausted into a chair next to the dwarf, kick up his heels on the low table and unwind his hair from its braids, and complain at length about treaties and nobles and political posturing.  Keith gets his best information this way, pretending to sleep on the druffalo rug with Lance or Hunk snoring beside him, while the most powerful elf (arguably the most powerful person) in Thedas gripes about his power.

The one day Keith's team crests a bluff in the Western Approach and sees another Inquisition unit below securing a caravan of Venatori slaves.  It's not an unusual sight, unfortunately, but this time there's a qunari in the middle of a ring of swords and ropes, roaring something that might have been rage or terror.  Keith's vantage is high, but he still recognizes the curved horns, and the dark, kind eyes that flit up to him when he slides down the face of the bluff yelling, "Stop!"

The soldiers do stop, maybe out of surprise more than anything to see a Dalish scout pushing through their ring to face a dangerously thrashing prisoner.  "You know him?" someone asks, and Keith drops to his knees.

"Yeah.  He saved my life once," he says softly, watching the qunari's heaving shoulders until he slowly looks up, expression melting from fury to soft, frightened recognition.  "You remember, right Shiro?"

He looks different.  Not just because he's larger (and he is, even though Keith grew a bit himself) and a bit more filled out, a slightly more rugged look to a face clear of any qunari warpaint, but his hair is cropped, with a tuft of white just over his forehead.  A scar crosses his nose from cheek to cheek, and his right arm ends just below the bicep. The other arm is lashed behind his back, ropes crossing a chest already crossed with more scars, and Keith can't imagine what's happened to change that perfect, chiseled body he remembered to this.  His heart aches.

"Keith," Shiro murmurs, his body relaxes and so do the soldiers surrounding him.

"Yeah, it's me.  It's been a while, huh?"  Keith reaches out carefully, settles his hand on Shiro's shoulder and feels a quiver run through him, but he doesn't flinch away.  "It's okay, no one here is going to hurt you." He glances to the side, eyes sharp, and the surrounding troops take the hint to lower their weapons.  The rest of the scouting team has caught up behind him, and Keith barks over his shoulder, "Help me untie him."

Pidge hops forward immediately, nimble fingers prying the knots apart; now is not the time for knives, when Keith can still feel Shiro trembling under his hand.  He wants to ask what happened, but Shiro was in a Tevinter slave shipment. He can guess a little bit from there, but can't arrive at a conclusion for how one of the Arishok's personal guard ended up enslaved to the Imperium.  And he can't imagine how long it must have been since Shiro knew any amount of kindness, because as soon as he’s free enough to do so, he drops forward to rest his face in the crook of Keith's shoulder.

"Thank you," Shiro murmurs, and only Keith can hear the way his voice cracks.

 

 

 

Pidge immediately has ideas, long before they're anywhere that isn't a hastily erected camp with Shiro wedged into whatever space they're able to make available for him.  Hunk loans him some spare clothes, the only one even remotely large enough to do so, and even then the pants are almost comically short on Shiro's frame and he foregoes even trying the shirt.  He tolerates Pidge's scrutiny and measurements well enough, and finally glances over at Keith with raised eyebrows when she scurries off to scribble down notes.

"She's an artificer," Keith explains, and Shiro nods with something that Keith suspects isn't quite understanding.  He's wary of people, touch, loud noises and fast movement. Keith wants to give him a weapon, something that might help him feel safer, but the others shake their heads a little, suggest regrouping with their commanding officer to see what she thinks.  So Keith just sits near Shiro by the campfire, itching to ask what happened but unwilling to see how the strain drew Shiro's face taut.

Keith remembers his smile, remembers how he casually pressed a hand against Keith's shoulder or back; they had only just met, only briefly spoke, but he'd been friendly and familiar.  At the very least, now, Shiro seems comforted by his presence.

They make their way across the desert to one of the main camps and regroup, and Keith finds himself facing down their commander—or facing up, because he’s still shorter than her by an inch or two and Allura's bearing is such that even a trifling difference made everyone around her feel smaller.  She's a circle mage, a high ranking Enchanter, one of the few abstentions on the now-infamous rebellion vote. Among the clans, she would have been a Keeper despite her age, a leader and diplomat, a queen in all but name. Keith doesn't know what her origins are, other than whatever vague guesses one can make about a dark-skinned elf with no Dalish markings, and he suspects she doesn't know either.

She stands in front of him with a twisted white staff in one hand and a sheaf of reports in the other, calf-length violet duster spattered with the remains of a quillback that she probably killed herself, and her eyebrows draw together in what might have been irritation or exhaustion.  "What did you do, scout?"

"It was a slave caravan.  I knew him, he calmed down as soon as he recognized me."

"Our unit isn't prepared to deal with a liberated slave.  In particular one of this—" she pauses, glances to the side where Shiro is standing quietly just behind Keith's shoulder.  She's not afraid of him; Allura isn't afraid of anything. "Stature. He needs to be relocated with the others."

Keith can practically feel the tension that sings through Shiro's body, even without touching him.  "He needs to stay with us." Keith almost says _me_ but catches himself at the last second.  "He can join the unit."

"We don't know anything about him."

"He was one of the Arishok's personal guard."

"He's right here," Shiro muttered, and they both startled just a bit, turning towards him.  "And he can hear everything you're saying."

Allura pauses for a long moment, lips pressed in a thin line.  "Working for the Arishok doesn't necessarily make me feel any better about you.  You could be a spy."

Keith’s shoulders hunch defensively on Shiro’s behalf.  "There's a qunari in the Inquisitor's inner circle. If the qun has spies on us, they're already here."

She sighs, leaning on the staff, some amount of weariness visible for the barest moment.  "I suppose that's true. I'm not sure we're prepared to outfit a qunari, though. We'll have to fall back to Caer Oswin."  She pauses, like she hopes that displaying these difficulties will change their minds, but of course it does not. Allura deflates.  "Alright, I'll make the request to fall back. But I'll tell you now, it will probably be at the expense of taking on an even less enjoyable task than scouting here, so prepare yourselves."

Unfortunately, Lance is close enough to hear that detail.  "Don't worry, ma'am, we'll know who to blame for it."

Keith scowls, and Lance snorts, attempting to strike an impressive pose, but everyone has already stopped paying attention to him and he goes back to restringing his bow.  Shiro begins edging away from the noise of the camp as soon as the conversation ends, and Keith follows until he stops at the edge of the bluff overlooking a narrow canyon, water trickling along the bottom.  The air is dry and gritty and Keith almost envies Shiro's limited clothing.

"You don't have to do this," Shiro says at length, flexing his one hand open and closed, almost like he's trying to remember how the missing one feels.  "I don't want to be a burden on you or your team."

"If anything, you're going to be an asset.  I'm not sending you away." Keith watches the uncertainty play over Shiro's face for a long moment, then the way he flexes his hand again.  "I don't know what happened and I'm not going to ask, but I'm pretty sure you've suffered enough. Let us help you."

Shiro's eyes feel heavy on him, considering, doubting.  They're dark and vulnerable and Keith wants to soothe the worry between Shiro's eyebrows, press his lips to Shiro's cheeks until his eyes close softly, until he accepts the comfort offered.  He raises a hand instead, slowly, feeling the barest tremor under his palm when he rests it against Shiro's arm. His shoulder is a bit too high, and Keith's hand on his bicep is a contrast of dark gold against moon white, hard muscle beneath porcelain.

"I don't know what to do here, without my people.  Without orders." Shiro lowers his own hand, but doesn’t pull away from Keith's touch.  "But... they didn't come to save me. You did. I'll follow wherever you lead."

Keith chuckles nervously, letting his hand fall away.  "I'm not much of a leader."

"Still selling yourself short, I see."  Shiro's lips quirk up towards a smile for the first time since Keith found him, and it makes something in his heart dance and sing.  "No pun intended. No, wait, absolutely intended."

Shiro has a beautiful smile, still, and it glows across his face when Keith laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> my friend opaldelight did some gorgeous art of qunari Shiro and Dalish Keith and [you can see it here~](http://caseyvalhalla.tumblr.com/post/178287761282/opaldelight-a-few-portrait-doodles-for)


End file.
